Water and Light
by Cerise Tennyo
Summary: Lady Odette contemplates her daughter's future. Oneshot. Takes place before the series. Contains mild spoilers for Return to Corsica.


**Water and Light**

by Cerise Tennyo

Odette Bouquet sat in the armchair beside her daughter's bed and watched her sleep. Mireille always had so much energy, getting her to settle down for her afternoon nap meant a daily struggle. Odette didn't mind--after she'd won.

Mireille's golden hair lay spread over her pillow. Her beloved teddy bear was snugged under her chin, and her rosebud lips parted in her sleep. She looked like a storybook angel, wrapped in pink. '_The peace of the newly born...'_ Odette shivered, feeling the chill uncurling in her soul.

_Where is it?_ Odette wondered, studying her daughter's sleeping face. The mark of Cain, the subtle sign that drew the High Priest's notice? What, of all the girl-children born into the Soldats, marked Mireille as a sapling?

Odette drew her lacy shawl more tightly around her shoulders. _Was it me? _she wondered. _Do the shadows of my sins lay over my child?_

The blessing bestowed meant that Mireille no longer belonged to her parents, or even the Syndicate the Bouquet family controlled. She was theirs in trust only, a true child of the Soldats. The blessing marked those who might be called for _le grande retour_, but the ritual had been lost for centuries. She had not believed...until Altena made her bid for power. Altena... who knew more about the teachings of the Hermit, of the Soldats of old, than any other priestess who wore the mantle.

_At sixteen, the purple and white mantle of a priestess still lay stiff and awkward on her shoulders. It reminded her with every movement that her life was one of service, a whole-hearted devotion to the ideals of the Soldats._

_"I've seen you when the captains gather," Altena said, sitting beside her on the stone bench. "They treat us as little more than ornaments, serving girls in fancy-dress, giving us heed only when they wish to wrap their sins in false piety."_

_Odette bowed her head, hoping to hide the shamed flush that heated her cheeks. She'd thought she'd hidden her feelings, her distaste for the decadent practices of the Soldats' leaders. As a priestess, she should have better control over her emotions. How could she bear the sins of others, if she could not order her own heart?_

_Altena leaned against her so they sat shoulder to shoulder. She put her hand over Odette's. "They have strayed far from the path. In a short time, perhaps in our lifetime, there will be no difference between these men of the Soldats and the sinners who pollute the world."_

_Odette gasped at the blasphemy, snatching her hand away. Altena met her outraged gaze, her eyes calm and serene. "Yet there may still be a way back to the truth, Odette, if we have courage."_

_"What...do you mean?"_

_Altena put her lips to Odette's ear. "I have the Book," she whispered. "The complete manuscript, all the teachings of the Hermit and the Holy Mother."_

_Odette stifled a gasp, covering her mouth with her hand. If that were true...then..._

_"We can return to the ways of the Soldats of old," Altena said. "We can purge the corruption from our ranks and know the truth once more."_

_'The Soldats are with the truth.' One of the handful of phrases from the Book, taught to every child of the Soldats, soldier, spy, sleeper, or priest. "What is the truth?" she whispered._

_Altena sat back, a small smile on her lips. "Love can kill people. It is a bloody truth. Men will kill for love of country, of a leader, of a god. Love blinds the eyes and cripples the mind. The Soldats of old hated the path of corruption, the war-without-end that devoured their children and loved ones. They found the strength to forge a new way!" Altena touched Odette's hand, her fingertips cold as snow. "Love can kill...but hatred can save. We need that strength, now! We need the blessings of the Holy Mother, and in the dark crucible of the Great Return, we can be Soldats in truth again!"_

Altena had the light of the zealot burning in her eyes, and the fire of a true believer in her heart. In the short years since Odette had left active ministry, Altena had risen in the ranks of the priesthood. Talk of _le grande retour,_ of Noir's true form, ran openly through the ranks. The Soldats hovered at the brink of a major schism.

And her child stood at the center of it.

Through her brother, Odette knew that others, pretenders, had taken up the name of _Noir_ in the past. All false, puppet governors of a legend they barely understood. The _true_ Noir took form only through _le grande retour_. Only two saplings could grow within the Soldats' dark garden. Two...of three. The Blessed, fated to walk the road of the Damned, bearing the greatest of sins.

Not Mireille! Not her golden, sweet Mireille!

Yet to go against the will of the Soldats... _"Love can kill..."_ Defiance meant death. Compliance meant annihilation of spirit. _Holy Mother_, Odette prayed, _give me guidance!_

"_Belle_?"

Odette looked away from her daughter, into her husband's eyes. Laurent Bouquet had the deep, sad eyes of one who had seen the true shape of this world. Those eyes, that sorrow, had led her to petition the High Priest of the Soldats for permission to lay aside her mantle of priestess, and make him her sole ministry.

She raised a hand to caution him to silence, then stood up. She crossed to his side, the silken folds of her dress whispering with her movements. Laurent said nothing, only stood aside to let her pass, then closed Mireille's door behind her.

Arm in arm, they strolled through the hall. They passed a small room, a security post, managed by three of Laurent's men. Not the most trusted of the Syndicate's men, though Laurent would never be so gauche as to say so. Laurent believed that filtering such positions smacked of favoritism, and fostered personal weakness and lapsed judgment. He trusted his people, but relied on his own strength. So far, the practice had served him well.

They moved out onto the broad terrace. Laurent pulled his arm free and braced his hands on the wide stone balustrade. The breeze made his tailored linen jacket flutter, giving brief glimpses of the Beretta holstered at his hip. The sea spread out before them, a rippling blue mirror crusted with diamond-dust. Three seagulls spun in the clear sky above them. The breeze kept off the heat. _Such a beautiful day_, Odette thought. _Heaven must feel like this._

She gave Laurent a sidelong look. In profile, the chiseled features she loved looked stern and forbidding. A hard man, her Laurent, but she loved him as much for his pain as for his joy.

"Altena's star is rising," she said. "Within the year, two at most, she will be Mistress of the Manor. Then she will call for the saplings, to oversee their planting in different earth."

Laurent stirred, turning to face her. A slight frown darkened his features. "A mere formality."

Odette shook her head, her eyes on the distant horizon. "Altena calls for a return to the ways of the Soldats of old. She wishes to initiate a _grande retour," _she said.

Shock and realization washed over Laurent's face. "The Elders would never permit that! The ritual is lost!"

Still watching the horizon, Odette said, "I do not think she will wait for their permission. And our daughter...is one of the blessed."

"Did you know this all along?" he demanded. "Have you known, from the beginning?"

"I knew of her ambition," she admitted, "but I never believed she would rise so far, so quickly. In any case, what could we have done, Laurent? The blessing is not something we sought, and it is not something that the loyal can refuse."

Laurent did not reply. His right hand moved, lifting from the stone. Odette slipped her own hand through the seam-slit in her carefully tailored skirt. Her fingertips brushed against the tiny derringer she carried, the weapon given to her in the name of the Soldats. But Laurent only closed his hand around the watch that hung from his vest pocket. The watch with the crest of the Two Maidens.

"The blessing cannot be annulled," he said.

"I know," she said. "And I know I cannot turn back the darkness. I can only buy her time."

"Then why?" he asked.

"For the love within the love," she said. "For the sake of that which can never die."

Laurent released the watch, letting his hand fall to his side. "We have been loyal, all our lives. We have seen the true shape of the world. Is it our place to flout the decisions made by those who govern and guide us?"

Odette hesitated, choosing her next words with care. "Altena believes...in the Soldats of old, and in that, I could support her. But her credo is that love kills, and that hatred can save."

"Hatred...can save?" Laurent repeated, incredulous. "Is she mad? Even the code of vendetta does not claim to _save _anyone!"

Odette said nothing, waiting for Laurent to work through to the conclusion on his own. At last, he turned to face her. Raised to manhood in the Syndicate, nursed on the bitter truths of the Soldats, his face showed not even the slightest flicker of emotion. Odette held still. Laurent might choose to remain loyal to the bidding of the Elders, and kill her for her betrayal. Or...

"Will we fight?" he asked.

She closed her eyes in relief. _We. _It was one thing to prepare for death for the sake of a loved one, another matter entirely to contemplate death at the hands of a loved one.

"No," she said, keeping her voice steady. "One Syndicate, against the power of the Soldats? This is _our _sin, Laurent. Let us keep its stain from those who show us loyalty." She rested a slim hand over his. "Death is certain, but the grace given us allows us to plan, to _use _our deaths as we have used our lives."

Laurent wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close. "Speak on, priestess," he said somberly.

"Send for my brother," Odette said. "Once we hear from the High Priest, give Claude a task, one that will take him away from the villa, but not _too _far. He must be able to return when he learns of our deaths. He will come for Mireille."

"He is not Soldats," Laurent protested.

"No," she agreed, "but he is skilled. He will be able to protect her, until she grows old enough to protect herself. The Soldats will not discard such a useful blade as Claude. They will demand an oath, and he will give it, for her sake."

She refused to imagine the forms of her death, or that of her husband. She was the Lady of Corsica. She was Soldats, and she was with the truth.

"Our son," Laurent began.

"Will die as well," Odette said, the armor of a Soldats priestess closing around her heart. Only with the Holy Mother's aid would she have the strength to see this through to the end. "The sin, to hide the sin."

"My _son,_" Laurent repeated, the hint of a tremor in his voice.

Odette waited, holding him close. _This _was the true test. Was the man within Laurent a Soldat, or Corsican Syndicate leader? Women did not take overt roles in the Syndicate. They were daughters, sisters, wives, tokens and trophies, symbols of a man's household and his honor. A son, an _heir_... With their deaths, their son's death, the Bouquet Syndicate, Laurent's legacy and life's work, would collapse. Their beloved Corsica would be picked over by their rivals, a beautiful corpse ravaged by dogs.

"_Let us feed the saplings with water and light,' _" she reminded him gently. "We cannot save her from the dark. What we _can _do is give her all the love and light we can, though we die of it."

Laurent held her tighter, reaching up to pull the pins from her hair. Her golden hair tumbled down in waves. His shelter, he'd called it on their wedding night, the place he could take all the emotions he could show before anyone else. He pressed his face against her neck.

"Claude is a true Corsican," he said at last, his voice muffled. "He knows the code. He will teach her well."

That any father should have to contemplate his daughter becoming a killer... She held him, her heart heavy with grief. Heaven, she believed in defiance of Altena's teachings, was _not _silent. Heaven spoke in the language of love, a soft voice too often lost among the cries of sin and suffering.

"The two hands of the Soldats stretch out with mercy," she whispered. "The two who best learn mercy, even in the heart of darkness, will become the _true _Noir. And mercy can only be born from a memory of love. Let this serve as _our _blessing on Mireille."

Laurent did not speak, but after a time, she felt him nod in acceptance. The sun slid ever closer to the horizon, heralding the fall of night.

-end-

A/N: I have _no_ evidence that Odette was ever a priestess of the Soldats--but she knew Altena's philosophy, and what sort of trials lay ahead for Kirika and Mireille. Some of the quotes are incorrect. I did this intentionally. Altena had the sole remaining copy of the Book, and while others had clearly seen it, copying pages from it, most likely its teachings had long ago become part of an oral tradition. 


End file.
